Earth Day with ZeMKI: Six Research Projects on Communication and Climate

Earth Day, celebrated every year on April 22, unites people around the world to raise awareness and inspire action for the protection of our planet. It is a time to reflect on the environmental challenges we face and on the ways we can work toward solutions. At ZeMKI, researchers are investigating the crucial role that media and communication play in shaping how we understand and engage with one of the most pressing issues of our time: climate change.

This blogpost highlights six projects by ZeMKI members. From exploring how young activists consume news and participate in politics, to examining how social media platforms and AI technologies shape public discourse, these projects showcase the powerful role digital media play in today’s climate communication. Whether through influencers, visual storytelling, or platform governance, ZeMKI’s research reflects the many ways media practices and technologies shape what we know and how we act in the face of this global crisis.

Political action and news usage of the Fridays for Future movement in Germany

Political action no longer takes place solely on the streets — it also unfolds in digital spaces: on platforms, in comment sections, and through hashtags. The Fridays for Future movement is a prominent example of this shift.

Patrick Zerrer‘s doctoral dissertation investigates the political news consumption of Fridays for Future supporters using state-of-the-art smartphone tracking methods. His research combines an elaborate study design with innovative data collection techniques that enable the exploration of micro-level media usage — such as reading political posts on social media or engaging in political conversations via WhatsApp — without compromising participants’ privacy. The resulting data offers a nuanced and comprehensive view of how young, politically engaged individuals navigate and consume information in a mobile and digital media environment.

Patrick Zerrer has successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in September 2024, and his monograph is now available to download at Bremen State and University Library.

Political discourse: Communicative AI and deliberative quality

Climate change remains a highly contested issue, with online discussions often marked by politicization and polarization. Can technology help moderate and improve the quality of these debates? The research project “Political Discourse: Communicative AI and Deliberative Quality” by Cornelius Puschmann, Patrick Frey and Gregor Wiedemann from Hans-Bredow-Institute investigates this question.

Using an experimental approach, the project explores the potential of discourse monitoring and intervention through social bots powered by large language models (LLMs) to influence the quality of public debate. The project focuses on German-language discussions about climate change across platforms such as Twitter/X, Mastodon, and Bluesky. The research team is designing and implementing bot intervention scenarios to analyze and compare their effects on political discourse. As part of the bigger ComAI Research Unit, funded by the DFG and the FWF, the project offers valuable insights into how communicative AI can shape online conversations.

The role of social media platforms in shaping the discourse about climate change

A significant role in shaping public discourse, however, play social media platforms themselves, as they structure user behavior and determine what content is visible through their governance mechanisms and design.

In her PhD dissertation, Vasilisa Kuznetsova investigates how platform content moderation practices affect the visibility and diversity of climate-related discussions. She empirically examines platform content moderation practices and algorithmic recommendation to better understand platforms’ impact on discourse about climate change. Theoretically, the dissertation highlights the role of technological infrastructures in shaping public discourse, with a particular focus on how platforms exercise political power through their modes of governance and the social and political responsibilities it entails.

You can learn more about Vasilisa’s work at ICA25 in Denver, USA, where she will present her early PhD findings on content moderation practices and public communication strategies of major social media platforms in the context of climate change.

INDI – Informed through influencer

Social media platforms have also become a go-to destination for young people to learn about science, including climate change. The project “Informed through Influencer” by Cornelius Puschmann, Patrick Zerrer and Paul Pressmann explores how climate-related information is shared and consumed on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok by young people in Germany. The goal is to understand whether and how social media content contributes to users’ knowledge about climate change.

Researchers combine mobile tracking, user surveys, and automated analysis of videos and audio to study real-life media behavior. With a strong focus on data protection, the project sheds light on the role social platforms play in everyday knowledge transfer and the opportunities they offer for science communication and public engagement.

The INDI project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Identifying visual frames on climate change via effective prompts

Visual elements play a crucial role in shaping climate and environmental debates on social platforms.   With a focus on advancing computational methods, Yuru Li is exploring how to identify visual frames on climate change using effective prompts. Her study introduces a hybrid, computer-assisted method to analyze visual frames regarding climate change on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook and TikTok.

The study analyzes thousands of climate-related images using a combination of automated image captioning and zero-shot classification. The resulting descriptions and topic labels are then merged and further processed using topic modeling to identify recurring visual patterns. The method demonstrated high reliability and therefore offers  a powerful tool for better understanding visual communication around climate change and holds significant potential for promoting public engagement and political action.

You can learn more about Yuru’s study at ICA25 in Denver, USA, where she will present her paper at the panel “Visual Storytelling: Emerging Frames and Practices”.

The missing piece in the puzzle? Examining the relationship between news exposure, climate importance and political participation

Does reading about climate impact how people think about climate and how is this connected with political action? ZeMKI researchers Patrick Zerrer, Vasilisa Kuznetsova, Cornelius Puschmann, Hendrik Meyer from University of Hamburg and Lisa Merten from Hans-Bredow-Institute try to understand the complex relationships between news exposure, perceived climate importance and political participation.

Using the POLTRACK data, a longitudinal collection of webtracking and survey data focused on 2700 German panelists, the study combines quantitative and computational innovative methods to identify climate-related media exposure and estimate the complex causal structures and mediating effects between variables. The study contributes to our understanding of news consumption, climate communication and its impact on society.